


A Miracle to Be Alive

by ooh_look_a_unicorn



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bisexual Hinata Shouyou, Cuddling, Fluff, Gay Kageyama Tobio, Getting Together, Hanahaki Disease, KageHina - Freeform, Love Confessions, M/M, Volleyball Dorks in Love, mentioned daisuga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25333879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooh_look_a_unicorn/pseuds/ooh_look_a_unicorn
Summary: Hinata knows pretty much everything there is to know about Kageyama Tobio. Except, it turns out, for one very big, very important, thing. Something that could kill them both.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 2
Kudos: 190





	A Miracle to Be Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This is only the second complete fic I've written in the last 6 years. It feels good to get back into writing! Let me know what you think!

If he thought about it, Hinata Shoyou knew a lot about Kageyama Tobio.

He knew his favorite brand of boxed milk. He knew that he liked curry buns. He knew that his favorite breakfast was fluffy pancakes drowning in maple syrup, but he didn't get it very often.

He knew that he spent a lot of time alone. He knew that his mother was frequently out of town. He knew that his father had been the one to teach him volleyball. He knew that his father had died tragically several years ago in a drunk driving accident.

He even knew Tobio was gay. They had accidentally come out to each other one night during a movie marathon when Hinata asked "Who do you think is the hottest actor in The Mummy?" and Kageyama answered immediately that it was Brendan Fraser. Hinata had agreed with the caveat that Rachel Weisz was also up there, and then they both realized what they had said.

In all, Hinata thought he knew pretty much everything there was to know about Kageyama.

That was, until Kageyama started acting weird.

One day, he skipped their extra practice after practice. "I'm not feeling well," he had said.

Then he was late to regular practice.

Then he started avoiding Hinata at lunch.

Then he would try to hide if he saw Hinata in the halls.

When Hinata finally caught him, and asked: "What the hell is going on?" Kageyama had just shrugged and said, "I haven't been feeling well."

Kageyama turned down his invitations to study sessions and sleepovers. He even turned down movie night!

Hinata thought they were best friends, so why was Kageyama avoiding him?

Then he saw it. Kageyama hurriedly left the club room after practice that Friday, and Hinata followed. Instead of heading home, he went behind the gym, bowed his head over the trash can there, and coughed up what looked like… orange flower petals?

Hinata ran away, and immediately when he got home, he started researching. "Coughing up flower petals" he typed into the search engine. The first page to come up was a Wikipedia article about Hanahaki disease.

"When someone has Hanahaki disease, they cough up flower petals," the article stated. "This appears to be caused by a hormone imbalance associated with unrequited love."

Hinata quickly searched what unrequited meant. "Unreturned, one-sided."

So, Kageyama was in love with someone? He went back to the Wikipedia article.

"Hanahaki disease does not appear to be contagious. It resolves either when the victim's love is returned, thus rebalancing the hormones, or when the victim…"

"Dies?" Hinata read aloud. "No, Kageyama can't  _ die  _ just because he loves someone. That's not fair!"

Hinata found himself with tears in his eyes, thinking about how his best friend had been suffering through this alone. Thinking about how stupid it was that just because he was in love meant he might lose his life. Hinata even found himself pissed off that Kageyama was even in love in the first place. "Stupid Kageyama, why did you have to go and fall in love with someone?!?" A twinge of jealousy lit through him.

Hinata knew, he had known for a while, that he had a tiny crush on his best friend. Okay, maybe it was bigger than tiny. Maybe it was pretty huge. So the thought of Kageyama falling in love with someone, someone who didn't return his love, someone who didn't deserve him even, and dying over it, made him simultaneously feel rage and grief. He slammed his hand down on the desk, tears pouring out of his eyes. 

Then a thought popped into his head. How long did Tobio have? He'd been acting strangely for about a week and a half. How much longer would he live?

According to the article, Hanahaki disease took 3-6 months to kill you, depending on the intensity of the love felt.

Just as he read this line, he suddenly coughed. He only had about 2 and a half to five months to spend with Kageyama? He coughed again, this time feeling an uncomfortable lump come up his throat. He wheezed, coughing and coughing until a little bunch of blue hydrangeas made its way out. What the-?

"Not me too!" He exclaimed. No. No, no, no. He couldn't have Hanahaki disease when the person he was in love with was so in love with someone else. 

Hinata thought about what he should do. Should he make Kageyama fall out of love with whoever it was and fall in love with him? That seemed like it might be difficult. No, he should just support Kageyama through this, and make the most of the time they had together.

He made up his mind. He texted Kageyama, "I saw you behind the gym. I'm coming over and you can't stop me." Then he told his mother he was going to Kageyama's house and might spend the night. He packed some clothes just in case Kageyama didn't leave him locked out on sight, and he pedaled down the hills, into town where Tobio lived.

When he got there, he was surprised to see Kageyama waiting for him on the steps to the door. He braked suddenly as he approached, then walked his bike up to the front steps.

"So you know then, huh?" was all Kageyama said before a coughing fit took him over. On closer inspection, the flower petals looked like tiger lilies.

Hinata steeled himself. "Who is it?"

"I can't tell you," Tobio practically whispered.

"Why not? I know you're gay already," he seethed, then a thought hit him. "Are you afraid I'll tell him to try to save your life? Dammit, Tobio. I'd do anything to try to save you!"

Kageyama looked taken aback by this.

"Let's just go watch a shitty movie, yeah? I'm tired," Kageyama stated, and stood up, indicating the conversation was over. He let the orange petals fall delicately from his hand to the ground. 

"Fine." Hinata secured his bike, then followed him inside.

Kageyama already had the TV on and a DVD slotted in by the time Hinata made it to the living room.

"Is your mom home?" Shoyou asked, and Tobio shook his head. "Isn't she worried sick about you?"

Kageyama looked up. "She doesn't know."

"She- you haven't told her?" Hinata gaped. "Why not?"

Kageyama shrugged. "She's been out of town since it started. Besides, I can't come out to her, and she knows the guy I'm…" he trailed off.

"In love with?" Hinata finished.

Kageyama nodded.

"Do I know him? Is it someone on the team?" Hinata interrogated him.

"If I answer that, you'll figure out who it is pretty quickly," Kageyama sighed. "And I don't want that." He looked contemplative for a moment. "I don't think I want to die knowing for sure he doesn't feel the same way."

Hinata began tearing up. "And if he did?"

"Then wouldn't he have this-" Kageyama coughed again, this time ejecting about five petals. "Wouldn't he have this disease too?"

Hinata frowned. "Maybe his feelings just aren't as strong as yours. Or he's hiding it as well." Hinata felt a tickle in his throat and swallowed it down as hard as he could.

Kageyama sighed. "It's just not that easy to confess your love when you're sure you're going to be rejected."

"Do you know if he's, well, gay? Or at least bi?" Hinata asked.

"He mentioned once that there was a guy he was attracted to, so that's not the issue," Kageyama said, almost like he was reassuring himself.

"Is it Daichi?" Hinata asked suddenly, and Kageyama almost burst out laughing. "I'll take that as a no then. Good, because he and Suga were made for each other."

Kageyama smiled, and it wasn't his scary smile. His eyes were soft and genuine. "I'll give you a hint, I guess. He's not dating anyone."

"Well that just improves your chances!" Hinata nearly shouted. "You have a chance to live, you should take it!" Hinata found himself thinking of his own plight. Of course he would fall so deeply in love with Kageyama to doom himself.

Kageyama pressed his lips together into a thin line. "Let's just watch the movie. We don't have all the time in the world."

_ You have no idea how right you are,  _ Hinata thought futilely. "Okay." He dropped down on the couch, leaving Kageyama about a foot of space between them, even though all he wanted was to be as close together as possible.

"This movie is horrible, but it's a cult classic. You're gonna love it. It's called 'The Room'." Tobio said, already laughing a bit.

"Alright, let's watch it."

Kageyama was right, Hinata did love the movie. Within the first few minutes, there was a horrible sex scene, to which Tobio said, "I may not be straight, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works." Hinata cackled so hard that he  _ almost  _ started coughing again. 

According to Tobio, it was common practice to throw plastic spoons at the screen every time you noticed the framed picture of a spoon in the background of the set, but they didn't have any, so they just shouted "SPOON!" together instead. They mimed throwing a football when the characters did, which, Tobio told him, was also a variation on common practice. 

By the end of the movie, they were both shaking from laughing so hard, and Kageyama had a reasonably sized pile of petals to his right. Hinata had managed to keep his own coughing discreet ("Just laughing too hard," he had assured Kageyama on a couple occasions) and hid his petals carefully in his pocket, to dispose of later.

Hinata eyed Kageyama's pile of petals. "You're really not gonna tell me who it is?"

Kageyama shook his head, fighting another cough.

"Even if I promise not to tell?" Hinata whined.

Kageyama lost his fight to the cough and hacked up two more petals. "Dumbass, you're terrible at keeping secrets," Kageyama started. "Not like you'd tell him, you'd just make such a big deal of hiding it that he would know something was up."

"Oh," Hinata groaned. He knew it was probably true.

Kageyama smiled sadly. "I've accepted my fate anyway. There's no way he loves me back. If I can just spend the next few months in his presence, that would be enough."

Hinata sighed quietly, "I know what you mean."

"What was that?" Kageyama asked.

"Nothing, it's getting late, we should probably sleep," Hinata quickly covered, standing up. "I'm going to the bathroom!" he announced and rushed out of the room.

What he didn't notice was that as he left, several small blue petals were left behind on the couch.

Kageyama stared at the spot that Hinata had jumped up from so suddenly. "What's this?" he asked loudly and picked up the lot of them.

Hinata froze in the hallway. "What's what?" He turned around in time to see Kageyama turning the petals over in his hand. His eyes widened in horror. "That's not what it looks like. I can explain."

Kageyama looked at him, curiosity bright in his eyes. "Who." It wasn't a question, but rather a demand.

"Y-you won't t-tell me, w-why should I h-have to tell you?" Hinata stuttered.

"How long then?" Kageyama asked, this time softer.

Hinata gulped. "Since this afternoon."

"It's scary, isn't it?" Tobio muttered. "Knowing that your life is in someone else's hands, and they probably can't even save you."

Hinata nodded."I know they can't. They're already in love with someone else."

"How do you know that?"

Hinata bit his lip and rubbed his left arm with his right hand. "Reasons."

"Is it Daichi?" Kageyama echoed.

"No, not Daichi. He and Suga are made for each other, remember?" Hinata laughed.

"Well you asked me earlier, so I figured maybe he was on your mind for some other reason," Kageyama replied, laughing as well. "My flowers are obviously tiger lilies, and yours are hydrangeas. Do you know what they mean?"

Hinata shook his head.

"I looked up tiger lilies when I first started coughing them up. They mean confidence and pride." He paused. "The guy I'm in love with, he radiates confidence, except for the few times I've seen him really nervous, and he's so proud of himself and everything he does."

Kageyama tapped on his phone for a minute. "Hydrangeas symbolize heartfelt emotion and understanding. Is your person like that?"

Hinata swallowed hard, nerves rising up. "He is. He feels everything really strongly, and he understands me even when I mess up my words." He stopped for a second. "I sometimes feel like he sees right through me, like he knows I'm in love with him…"  _ Like right now, _ he thought.

"I feel that way too. But he acts as oblivious as ever," Kageyama scowled.

"I just don't want to mess up our friendship, and then die in 3 months with him not even speaking to me," Hinata pondered aloud.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," Kageyama said, seeming as though he had decided it in that very moment.

"On three?" Hinata asked.

"One…" Kageyama started.

"Two…"

"Three!"

"It's you," they said in unison, Hinata confidently, Kageyama a little less so.

"It's-"

"-me?"

They stared at each other for a long moment before breaking out into wide smiles simultaneously.

"Dumbass," Kageyama said. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you were pining after someone else!" Hinata responded loudly. "I thought I didn't have a chance."

Kageyama stood up to meet Hinata in the hallway. "Dumbass," was all he could say as he leaned down to place a chaste kiss on Hinata's forehead.

"You missed," Hinata teased. "And I'm the dumbass." He stood up on his tiptoes and captured Kageyama's lips with his own, wrapping his arms around his neck.

They moved in tandem, as they did with everything, just like volleyball. One moment Hinata would have Kageyama's bottom lip between his, then they would switch positions. They stood in the hallway like that, kissing until they were out of breath.

"I love you," Hinata blurted out, no longer fearing the response he would get.

Kageyama stepped back a bit and ruffled Hinata's hair. "I love you too, dumbass."

"Well I'm your dumbass now, so you better get used to it," Hinata giggled.

Kageyama smiled, that genuine smile that reached his eyes from earlier. "You were right, it's late, we should go to bed," he said, popping back into the living room to turn off the TV before dragging Hinata down the hallway to his bedroom. They dropped down onto the bed and Kageyama pulled Hinata into his arms, cuddling up to him.

"We should put on pajamas," Hinata pointed out.

"Later," Kageyama said, nuzzling his nose into Hinata's neck. "Let's just stay like this for a while. I never thought I would get to do this."

"Me neither," Hinata admitted.

They fell asleep like that, neither bothering to change, holding each other like it was a miracle to be alive.

Maybe because it was.

**Author's Note:**

> I may post a bonus chapter/epilogue thing if this gets enough love. I've got some ideas for where I'd like it to go, I just haven't written it yet. So please, leave a comment or give kudos if you enjoyed this!


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